a police officer accused of sexual assault during an undercover mission in Catalan anarchist and separatist circles

It’s an incredible story that ends in court. Daniel Hernández Pons, an assumed name, began his infiltration mission in June 2020. Objective: to spy on and understand the functioning of anarchist and independence circles on behalf of the police of Catalonia. He presented himself at that time in front of a self-managed social center, a kind of “day squat”, where activists organized all kinds of political, cultural or sporting activities.

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He gradually gains the trust of his comrades. He makes himself up, copying the look of his new friends with earrings and spiky hair. He wears T-shirts with an anti-fascist or anti-police message, and even a huge anarchist star tattooed on his knee. And one thing leads to another, he goes from one group to another, from this center to a collective for the defense of the right to housing, from a demonstration to a well-watered party.

The issue of consent

If some welcome its infiltration, others cry scandal: the magazine Directa who unveiled the case has indeed obtained the testimonies of eight women, who claim to have had romantic or sexual relations with this mysterious “DHP”. Two of them explain having even been in a relationship with him. Five of these women filed a complaint for “sexual assault”. They do not say that this Daniel forced them to have relations with him, but rather that if they had known that he was an undercover policeman, it would have been out of the question that they had the slightest beginning of a relationship.

This case revives the question of consent and lying in Spain. According to the police, these are relatively common techniques in espionage cases. For a Catalan independence deputy, these infiltrations are normally authorized only for very specific crimes: terrorism, drug trafficking or human beings, in particular… Here, between the pacifist anarchists and the collectives of neighborhood residents, do not correspond to this type of harm coupled with this degree of personal involvement.